Hero, Savior
by The Uninspired
Summary: Cloud has his good days, and Cloud has his bad days.


As Tifa will tell you, Cloud has his good days and his bad days.

Regardless of how the day goes, they all start off the same. Cloud is a light sleeper, an early riser. He sits in the kitchen of the Seventh Heaven before anyone else in the building is awake and he brews a pot of coffee. Tifa often comes down to find him sipping the beverage out of his chipped mug, skimming Reeve's weekly WRO report or reviewing his route for the day.

He finalizes his route, makes some calls, then heads out for the day with a wave. He's normally out of the house after Denzel and Marlene wake up, but before they have to leave for school, so they get their daily dose of Cloud's shadowed smiles and dry remarks. Fenrir roars to life where it is parked just off the street. The sound of the engine echoes off the skyscraping buildings as he heads out of Edge.

Kalm, Junon, Wutai - Cloud goes everywhere. His bike takes him all over the world, utilizing ferries and cargo ships to cross the oceans and lakes. He actually looks forward to the driving. Edge is cramped, muggy and polluted, so by comparison the open roads are something of an escape. He has to fight off the occasional monster, but that's a small price to pay for all the free space. Cloud grew up in a small village just beneath the stars; he enjoys the return to that.

The solitude gives him time to think, and there are few who think as much as Cloud Strife thinks. He is a man of few words, yet he loves them. Thoughts and feelings and memories and experiences can be conveyed in word, and that all rattles around in his mind as he steers Fenrir over fine gravel roads. He had been depraved of a good five years of thought due to mako poisoning, and he'd be damned if he didn't take advantage of this time to make up for that. Yet as much as he thinks, his beloved words find difficulty making their way from his throat. They get jumbled and ruffled in the process, so as a result, Cloud mostly keeps his thoughts to himself. He finds it ironic - the hero of Gaia cannot even properly hold a conversation with someone.

It seems he is only a hero in an ironic sense. They call him hero, savior. Most just stare, whisper behind his back. There are very few SOLDIER operatives who still walk this earth, so his mako eyes are a novelty. If they don't know who he is on first sight, his eyes give it away. _The ex-SOLDIER who stopped Meteor,_ some will say. These are what makes the bad days. His frustration rises in his chest. He wants to tell them that he is not a hero, and he was never even SOLDIER; all he did was swing his borrowed sword and cause property damage. The departed last Cetra stopped Meteor, and all his friends saved the Planet.

Cloud pulls into the ruins of Midgar on these days instead of heading straight for Edge. He walks with a forgotten limp as he climbs off his bike, recalling the battles he'd fought years prior. With confidence he strides into the worn-down church; with heaviness he sits among the flowers. He looks at the broadsword driven into the makeshift grave marker and hangs his head. His grief floods over him as he sits in this place where the dead and gone had once walked and lived, this place that served as their respite from the outside world. A proud-shouldered man, the accidental hero, is broken in these moments on his very bad days. He struggles to breathe as all these shards of his splintered self dig into his sides.

She watches in agony. He breathes deeply, in tempo, as he attempts to stave off the tides of nauseating anxiety that constrict his chest. She wants nothing more than to curl up inside his lungs and breathe with him, feel the life as it pulsates through his tired, fractured body. She wants to kiss his bad days away and she wants to nap with him when he takes a break from the road. She wants to share his air, feel his shuddering breath as he sighs her name against her neck.

He feels helpless there, unable to speak to her, but he never knows that she feels just as forlorn. It's unfair that they are separated when they are so close.

When the sun sets on his bad days, he stands to his feet and steadies the frantic thrum of his heartbeat, the panicked whirl of thoughts. His phantom limp vanishes as he leaves the church for the night just as it was. Tomorrow, the children who play in there will notice a flat spot in the flowers where he sat, but they will think nothing of it. He closes the heavy doors gently. There is little enthusiasm as he swings his leg over his bike and heads out of the ravine back to Edge, the soft purr of the engine echoing in the Midgar ruins.

Tifa has gotten better as sensing his bad days, so she stays quiet as he enters the Seventh Heaven late at night. Denzel and Marlene are already upstairs, so he bids them a goodnight before taking a shower and hitting the sack early. He's a light sleeper, an early riser; he sleeps without really sleeping. He is always awake in his dreams, looking for her in all of the memories that resurface. To help, she appears to him as often as she can, hoping that it will help him deal with his anxiety attacks.

He sits in the kitchen of the Seventh Heaven in the morning and sips his coffee, reading Reeve's weekly report without taking in any of the words. Tifa chats with him, used to his distracted and short replies by now. Cloud runs through his dreams from the night before and hopes that this day will be a good day.


End file.
